Cricket is, or was, an evangelical game. Players compete strongly but beneath that lies a strong imperative both to teach others and pass on the arts and sciences, and equally to learn, from colleagues and opponents alike. Once it was done over a post-match beer, but nowadays there are ice baths, warm-downs, a multitude of coaches in all the disciplines, and team buses that leave post-haste for the hotel.

But if, over the next four days at Northampton, there is a decent rain break (and all the indications are that there will be), then for the want of asking, an opportunity will surely be there for the young batsmen of the Lions to add to, or reinforce, the vast amount of knowledge that is already available to them in the form of batting coaches, the Grahams, Gooch and Thorpe.

In the next dressing room will be Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and if ever a batsman has willed himself to be wedded and welded to the Test match crease it is he. All great Test batsmen are single-minded, but Chanderpaul is exceptional even by those standards. In Tests, he averages a shade over 50 and recently, against Australia, became the second West Indian, behind Brian Lara, to pass 10,000 runs in that format. Currently, he stands at the top of the ICC rankings, a position not held by a West Indies player since Lara was in his pomp.

Just consider, for a moment, some of the staggering things that Chanderpaul has managed over the course of 140 Tests. Only six batsmen have gone 1,000 minutes or more without being dismissed: none but he has done so more than once and he has managed it four times. He is the only batsman ever to face 1,000 consecutive deliveries without getting out. Only he and Bradman have averaged over 100 in Tests in successive calendar years. Only he and two others have scored half-centuries or more in seven consecutive Test innings. That is his obdurate and consistent side. But then balance that against the 69-ball hundred he scored against Australia on his home ground Bourda, in Georgetown, the fourth fastest in history, and it is clear that far from being arguably the most stubborn batsman in history by upbringing he has made himself into that by self-imposed restraint.

And it is this lesson, one that will have been conveyed by Gooch and Thorpe, that Chanderpaul would be able to reinforce. There is a growing feeling these days that young batsmen, inspired by the six-hitting exploits of one-day cricket, and enabled by the modern weapons of mass destruction, have not garnered the art of constructing an innings, of assessing conditions and shot-selection appropriate to that. When one young player, befuddled by a tricky April pitch, was reported as saying it was impossible to drive on it, it told of a generation unable to understand that the stroke is not compulsory and that not all pitches have to be shirt fronts to satisfy the bludgeoning quest for the run-a-ball hundred.

If batsmen have found the past month a real challenge, and some modest bowlers have been flattered by the help they have found, then it has also been an object lesson in the requirements of how to knuckle down and play an innings. Indeed it is arguable that the past few weeks, far from clouding the issues when it comes to assessing not so much current form as Test match potential, have actually been instructive.

There have been some stand-out innings, including Chris Read's astounding lone battle for Nottinghamshire against Somerset, Ravi Bopara's composed hundred in adversity at Headingley, and Jonny Bairstow's effort against Leicestershire at Scarborough, also last week. But then, a glance at the current averages shows one batsman so far ahead of the field in terms of runs scored as to place much else in perspective. Nick Compton has 715 runs, almost 300 more than his closest rival Neil Edwards of Notts, and, given a fair wind, stands a chance of completing 1,000 by the end of May, something not achieved by his illustrious grandfather. He has achieved this, say those that have watched him, by batting diligently, solid technically and temperamentally, single-mindedly, watchfully, and with discretion: Test match qualities in fact.

Now Compton, along with other international hopefuls such as Bairstow, James Taylor, Joe Root and Michael Carberry, will get the chance at Northampton both to emulate and watch Chanderpaul. Perchance they all get to pick his brains too. The batting coaches, as well as England coach Andy Flower and selector Geoff Miller, will not be looking for the thunderous big hits, or the brisk half century (that is for another day) but for those with the capacity to craft an innings. Opportunities are there for the next generation.